“One Year ago–Jots what” (F 301A, J 296)

One Year ago – jots what? 
God – spell the word! I – cant – 
Was’t Grace? Not that – 
Was’t Glory?  +That – will do –    + ‘Twas just you –
Spell slower – Glory – 

Such anniversary shall be – 
Sometimes – not often – in Eternity – 
When +farther Parted, than the    + sharper 
common Wo – 
Look – feed opon each other’s
faces – so – 
In doubtful meal, if it be possible 
Their Banquet’s +real –    +True

I tasted – careless – then – 
I did not know the Wine 
Came once a World – Did you? 
Oh, had you told me so – 
This Thirst would blister – easier –
now – 
You said it hurt you – most – 
Mine – was an Acorn’s Breast –
And could not know how
fondness grew 
In Shaggier Vest – 
Perhaps – I could’nt – 
But, had you looked in – 
A Giant – eye to eye with
you, had been – 
No Acorn – then – 

So – Twelve months ago – 
We breathed – 
Then  +dropped the Air –  +lost
Which bore it best? 
Was this – the patientest – 
Because it was a Child,
you know – 
And could not value – Air? 

If to be “Elder” – mean most pain – 
I’m old enough, today, I’m
certain – then – 
As old as thee – how soon? 
One – Birthday more – or Ten?
Let me – choose! 
Ah, Sir, None! 

Link to EDA manuscript. Originally in Fascicle 12 (H112), early 1862. First published in Bolts of Melody (1945), 159-60, as seven stanzas of 5, 6, 5, 4, 4, 7, and 6 lines. Courtesy of Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.

This “anniversary” poem notes the passing of a year since some momentous event in the speaker’s life involving a lover, possibly male, since he has a “Shaggier Vest,” that is, a hairy chest unlike the speaker, who contrasts this to her “Acorn’s Breast,” round, smooth, brown and definitely not hairy!

This poem is notable for its headlong and varied pace and its lack of metrical consistency, an example of Dickinson’s free verse. As the emotions and metaphors shift, so do the line lengths. Stanza one bumps along, interrupted by spondees (feet of two Stressed syllables): “jots what?” “I – can’t,” “Not that,” “will do.” In stanza two, the metaphor of a banquet for the lovers looking and feeding “opon each other’s faces – so –” expands into longer pentameter lines of five feet to suggest the bounty of this feast, which also echoes the spiritual plenty of the communion meal and the sacramental wine they drink in stanza three. The poem never really settles rhythmically, and the final two lines clinch the formal sense of truncation.

The allusion to choice comes here at the end of the poem but is enigmatic (and, perhaps, generalizable) in its reference. The speaker notes the pain both parties have suffered, and says, “If to be ‘Elder’ – mean most pain –/ I’m old enough today.” But she wants to be as old as the beloved (to equalize the pain) and wonders “how soon?” trying to guess the number of birthdays this would require. She concludes: “Let me – choose!/ Ah, Sir, None!”

Is she saying, no more birthdays, no more passage of time, no more separation or pain–that is what I would choose? Or does this preference for choosing “none” also encompass the whole scenario of the original choice of the beloved, the one “Atom” selected “from all the lists of Clay”? It should not escape notice that these line resolutely confirm Sharon Cameron’s finding, from reading the fascicles, that Dickinson’s method can be best characterized as “choosing not choosing,” which is slightly different from choosing “none,” but both carry the sense of Dickinson’s radical refusing of closure and determinacy, her desire to dwell in the openness of possibility.

Sources:

Cameron, Sharon. Choosing Not Choosing: Dickinson’s Fascicles. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992.

Kornfeld, Susan. “One Year ago– jots what?” the prowling bee: blogging all the poems of Emily Dickinson. 25 July, 2012.

Back to index

Next poem